Lost in Translation: Anti-TPP Campaign Befuddles Washington

Japan’s agricultural lobby has taken its campaign against a global free trade agreement to the U.S., buying a full-page advertisement in Tuesday’s Washington Post opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The ad is titled “Don’t let the TPP rob your future,” and features a picture of a padlocked factory on the back page of the newspaper’s front section.

For American readers, it must have seemed a strange message. The advertisement doesn’t say what the proposed free-trade agreement consists of or how it would “destroy jobs” for Americans. JRT asked a colleague who doesn’t cover Asia to review it. The reaction: “What is it about? I have no idea what it means.”

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